There was a part of me that wanted to take my place next to, you know, Debra Granik. She's such a hero for me.
There's no reason that a writer, if they have some discipline and curiosities and passion, can't be vital for a long, long time.
Ultimately what I try to do is work on stories I love with people I admire, and sometimes they get made and sometimes they don't.
Writing a really good screenplay is not easy. It can be a very punishing form.
I make sure when I direct that it's a very joy-based set that hopefully is filled with a lot of respect.
I want to make a series of films of contemporary America that feel urgent and deal with sometimes-topical matters, but hopefully in a universal way.
The kinds of movies I make are not easy to get made.
I never try to think I have the answer to what people should do or not do.
I think the best dramas are as funny as possible and the best comedies have, underneath them, real substance.
The most autobiographical thing I've ever written is my second novel, called 'An Ocean in Iowa.' That is pretty close to my childhood.
Pieces of April' was going to be a 3 to 7 million dollar film and we had three entities, two studios, and one wealthy man and they all backed out. It was quite a blow.
Something happened to me when I wrote female characters in my early plays; it was a real liberation.
When I did 'Gilbert Grape,' Lasse Hallstrom let me be on the set with him and in the editing room and in the casting sessions and so on. And so I got a firsthand, rather intimate, high-pressure look at how to make a film.
I used to find limitations frustrating, but I find them enormously liberating.
I'm interested in stories that help me, people navigate in this broken world.
Is my job as a child, even as an adult, is my job to heal the wounds of my parents' childhoods?
The job in every re-write is to make it harder for your characters to get the thing that they need.
I love films that take place over a short period of time, and I feel that those films are in our cinematic DNA.
I wouldn't say I'm a religious person, but I am definitely inclined toward asking the big questions.
I grew up going to funerals and visiting people in nursing homes. I'm not as afraid of dealing with the dying as maybe some other people may be.
